#need a song tag......... one day

[risingsunresistance]

something something technoblade i cant form the words they're just there okay

[heartorbit]

find another role, carry on the show

[synthshenanigans]

You Sound Like Louis Burdett is a banger song I wish it was real 💔 [looking at you spotify]

skeleton-less & textless versions ✨ wahoo ✨

[lover-of-mine]

Everyday, you feel a little bit further away and I don't know what to say...

[rise-my-angel]

U like Sansa? Personally she’s so bland and self righteous that I find it impossible to like her :( her personality depended on the people she was spending time with

Sansa is like my problematic little sister who makes my life a frustrating hell, but I still spoil her everytime I come to visit.

She certainly has her issues and I have judged her for them in the past, especially regarding her entitlement, selfishness, and classiest views. All of which are issues riddled throughout her story.

But there is a part of me that remembers that behind it all, she is just an innocent, naive girl who is being forced to play house in the capitol and family that murdered her father in front of her, and is forcing her to play pretend that she can't wait for the rest of her traitor family to die so she can marry the King who did all of this in the first place.

Sansa in the books, and Sansa in the first four seasons are very much that girl who while has a LOT of growing up to do, she is still just that naive girl who desperately needs someone to care about her with no hangups attached like everyone around her, but she never gets it. She is nothing more then a pawn to these people who see her as a useful pretty airhead instead of someone that given the right mentor and environment, could be very clever and quick on her feet.

In the first four seasons she has some great moments. Like when Joffery forces her to look at her fathers head on a spike, and she risks her own life by stepping forward about to push Joffery off the ledge before she's stopped and knocked back into reality by the Hound telling her to keep herself alive and play along. Or the scene where Margaery proposes she can get Sansa to Highgarden by marrying her to Loras and you just see that innocent girl who wants someone to care about her finally have hope, only to be seen next on the docks in tears as all of it was taken away from her before she could even dream about that better life.

She isn't the most interesting character, and her last four seasons in the show I have made quite clear I absolutely hate her characterization, but the Sansa we see whose still just a girl trapped in Kings Landing being forced to say she wants her whole family dead and smile while doing so, I feel for her.

I remember that Sansa in those moments, behind all her issues and flaws, is just a naive girl who no one around actually cares about and it makes me care about her more, beacause no matter what her flaws are, someone should.

But I do not at all blame people who cannot get past those flaws.

[corpusdiem-seizethedead]

“Ready for This” is the Hazbin Hotel version of “Seize the Day” (Newsies)

Thank you.

[braisedhoney]

some tragic love stories be like: if i could bottle the galaxy, i would pour it into a cup so it would be easier for you to drink. do you want them? do you want the stars? or do they suit you better as adornments for your eyes than glitter on your lips?

but they don’t want the stars. they don’t want the galaxy. but how can they not? is that not enough? (it’s too much, that’s the problem. it’s too much.)

[dedahblog]

"I'm going away smiling" by Yoko Ono (I prefer Iggy pop cover )

"I'm going away smiling

Thinking about our life

How we were good for each other

And how we knew"

..

Video format

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[johnslittlespoon]

i was so excited to listen to glass animal's new song 'creatures in heaven' today and instead my heart has been ripped out because it's so awfully painfully fitting for our mota boys (i'm currently making an angsty heartache–y edit to it lol whoops) BUCKLE UP because i need to yell (and keep scrolling if lyric analysis/song fics aren't your thing <3)

also tumblr keeps screwing with the formatting ignore that pls lol

What do you think about when you think about love? I'm dumbstruck when you're tender, but It's three in the morning, be in the moment It tears through my head, does it haunt you too?

i mean, the imagery. pillow talk, sneaking off base before dawn, vulnerability and raw honesty laying side by side in a field, looking up at the stars and wondering which ones are the people they've lost looking down at them, every peaceful, happy moment laced with the knowledge that so many friends will never get to have another one.

You held me like my mother made me just for you You held me so close that I broke in two

fuck my life. dave bayley count your days. these lines are just so viscerally painful and stunning? john feeling like every core of his being was made to fit gale, like puzzle pieces slotting together, the gaps in his life filled the moment gale enters his orbit. both of them never having experienced being treated so gently and with so much reverence, feeling taken apart and put back together in each other's arms.

You pass through my head, does it haunt you too? Never really said that I loved you, too

heavy on the angst here because this reads like post–war john pov, filled with regrets but plastering on a smile as he watches gale marry someone who isn't him, aching to tell him how he feels but knowing it will only make a mess of things. and more than anything, he wants gale to be happy, and if that means staying quiet and loving him at arm's length, he can do that. but late at night he can't help but wonder if gale ever thinks about what could've been, if all the moments they shared haunt him too.

Lucky, lucky you, 'cause I'm fortune's fool Such small words but they hit so huge

this reminded me of gale's father and his gambling and how despite everything he falls in love with john, a gambling man. such small words (don't count on it) but they mean everything :(

I don't think I realize Just how much I miss you sometimes We were young and so in love

this hurts on SO MANY LEVELS. i immediately read this as curtbucky– john never gets time to grieve, everyone just has to keep trucking on. but sometimes late at night it hits him so hard he feels like he's drowning, realizing how empty of a space curt's left, how much he truly loved him, the first person to make him feel that way.

but also can be read as buckbucky, both of them properly feeling the emptiness of not being by each other's sides for the first time before they reunite at the stalag, maybe both having a feelings–realization moment when they're hit with how wrong everything feels when they're apart.

or, post–war, john aching for gale and wishing on everything that he can just fall out of love. he knew that it would be hard, going back home and going their separate ways, even with the promise to stay in contact, but it's so much harder than he ever could have imagined.

Three in the morning, safe inside Bury me here in your laundry pile

ouch ouch ouch. a few images: john seeking out one of gale's worn shirts after his plane goes down, falling asleep with it pressed to his chest in his bed. or john stealing one of gale's shirts before they all go back home post–war, shoving it to the bottom of his suitcase, sleeping with it every night despite the way his stomach turns, feeling hollowed out as the smell of him slowly fades away. or, john staying at gale and marge's house for the wedding, having a breakdown the night after, finding himself on the floor of their laundry room at three am, curling up in a pile of dirty laundry just to feel close to gale one last time before he goes home in the morning.

I don't see the point in a subtle romance Ten tonne heartache sitting on your back

john is so all or nothing with love; when he's in, he's in, barrelling full speed ahead, giving it all up for his person. maybe the secrecy when they first start seeing each other is okay at first, little midnight rendezvous, but he craves more, he wants a future with gale so badly, he wants a house and a wedding and kids and a dog and sitting side by side on a porch at eighty years old. but he knows that gale is giving him all that he can right now, and it's better than nothing, so even though he wants so much more, he'll settle.

Scared of the crack where the light comes through I'm only really me when I'm here with you

ughhh both of them being so scared to be really seen by someone that it's terrifying how quickly they grow close. that nauseating feeling you get right after opening up to someone for the first time, the feeling of holding your breath waiting for rejection– but it never comes. they accept each other with open arms and patience and unconditional love and they show each other what it's like to be able to be so fully unapologetically real with someone for the first time. a shell of themselves when they aren't together, like they're missing one half, and it's so obvious that everyone around can see it. they share the same name for a reason.

And it gets into your head like a cosmic zoom Coat on the door like an old space suit So long cowboy, you're so cool Cash in hand with a memory of you

okay, ngl this just made me think of john ditching his coat that gale hates– even in the heat of going up on a mission, it's still in his head, enough to go through the motion of swapping it out. so long cowboy just sounds like something sweet he and curt would've said to each other honestly; thinking about john saying it again when he looks up at the stars the night he finds out curt didn't make it.

cash in hand with a memory of you? come onnn it's literally the lucky deuce. may as well have just slapped that bit of the song behind the scene of gale going through his belongings when he makes it back to base, picking up the cash and thinking about his man. </3

–anyway! apologies for the word–vomit, sometimes i just get a song wedged into the front of my skull and i am paralyzed from doing anything else until i get my thoughts out about it. and it's truly such a gorgeous song, 10/10 recommend if you feel like crying, been listening to these guys for a decade now and they never disappoint.

literally gonna agonize over making an edit for this for hours to get the vision just right and would not be surprised if i end up writing a oneshot inspired by it lol i adore every song they've put out but this one just gripped me so strongly the moment i pulled up the lyrics with how perfectly it slotted into the mota–verse. <33

[rainbowpufflez]

Bo got one singular note on his last post so here’s Gus and Lys’s breakup scenario he randomly wrote one day

It’s not like Augustine and Lysandre hadn’t had squabbles before. Little things tend to build up in relationships and sometimes things bother someone more than they usually would. But this was the first fight where things got heated. Where something was, different.

Augustine doesn’t remember how it started, what he must’ve said that caused Lysandre’s mood to shift. He remembers watching Lysandre’s muscles stiffen and his gaze go distant, brows furrowing down along with it. He remembers Lysandre making a snide remark, something that implied that Augustine was beneath him. And so it started.

Soon they were both yelling. While they both had issues communicating to each other what they needed, it had never gotten this bad before. They always found a way to calm themselves before exploding. However, they were past that point this time.

Words fell to the floor and meant nothing. Time seemed to stretch on for thousands of years between them. A never ending battle, where Augustine bared his horns in a defensive state and Lysandre squawking out shrilled calls in attempt of explanation.

“You don’t understand!”

Augustine remembers Lysandre choked out. When had they both started crying?

“Oh and how do I not understand?! Have I not been understanding?! Have I not loved you with all my heart and soul?!”

He replied with a harsh gesture back at himself. It felt like there was a ticking time bomb between them and it was on its last second.

Then it slipped out.

“Because I’d KILL for you Augustine. Because I’d DIE for you.”

The room went still.

Before Augustine even could process what was said, he shouted back.

“I NEVER asked you to do that.”

Lysandre took a step back, it seemed he realized what he said as his muscles stiffened again. And Augustine’s response only made it worse. He coiled into himself.

“Augustine, I-“

“Get out.”

He didn’t expect that response. He moved, still stiff. His talons were no longer ready for attack, instead they were opened palm out. A last attempt at solace.

“Augustine please I didn’t mean that—“

“I said get out.”

Augustine was still on defense. His hooves dug into the floor as he stood firm. He didn’t look at his counterpart. He just waited.

“Alright.” Lysandre eventually responded when he realized that it was futile to work it out now. “I’ll leave.”

There was a small shuffle, a collection of things. A bag, his keys, his coat. No words were spoken between the two as he made his way to the door.

As Lysandre reached the door he turned to face Augustine one last time. “Gus… I… I love—“

“Out.”

And so that was that. Lysandre’s brows furrowed down again at his words, not able to hide a bitter, hateful look. He gave a firm nod then swung open the door and left.

Augustine was left in silence in the middle of the room, holding himself in an attempt to not break down. But instead of mustering up any last remaining tears, or truly processing what Lysandre had said, he just felt a wave of exhaustion overcome him.

He found himself falling back on the couch, gripping at a throw pillow with a gaudy checkered design. A design Lysandre hated but he loved.

His energy drained, he found his eyes closing. And with the last remaining energy he wondered.

Had he always been that way?

[hum--hallelujah]

like a sledgehammer to a disco ball - 3.9k words, Fun Ghoul angst and protective Kobra Kid

Kobra jerks awake at the first creak of the floor. The only person who has any right to be in his room at night knows better than to step where the floor creaks. Instinct takes over and he's holding his blaster at body height by the time his brain and eyes are awake enough to see through the dark.

"It's me, it's me, it's me," Ghoul stammers, holding his hands defensively in the air. Only, it sounds more like "'smee," because of the way Ghoul is slurring. And he's bleeding.

Kobra drops the blaster as soon as he realizes that the dark smear across Ghoul's face is blood. "What the hell, man," he hisses, groping in the dark for a light with one hand and trying to pat Ghoul down to make sure he's not like, actively dying, with the other. He could be blackout drunk or he could have gone out alone like he does sometimes and any number of things could have happened. The cold metal of an old flashlight meets his fingers and he flicks it on, shining the dim light over Ghoul.

"I did something stupid," Ghoul says. Only, it comes out as "Uh did su'hn stooid," wavering slightly, because the entire right side of Ghoul's face, from the corner of his mouth to his cheekbone, is sliced open. There's a horrific flap of flesh hanging loose that's supposed to be connected to the rest of his face. That's where the blood staining his face and clothes and hands is coming from, and why when he speaks, it sounds wrong.

"Holy shit," Kobra whispers, feeling cold Zone night air sting his eyes because they're open so wide. "Okay. Okay, what happened?" He holds Ghoul carefully by one arm, feels the way he's shaking. He's always shaking, except when he's got his hands in a bomb. This is worse than normal though. This is so much worse than anything Kobra's ever seen.

Ghoul shrugs, waves his hands vaguely and wildly. Kobra hisses a sharp breath through his teeth, frantically runs a hand through his hair. "Okay," He says again. "I'm gonna get-" He needs Jet, de facto medic, he needs Party, needs his brother-

"No," Ghoul says sharply, and that at least is completely clear. His eyes are wild from what Kobra can see in the dark. If human eyes could glow, his would. He grips Kobra's arms. "Please don't," he mumbles around the gruesome injury. His voice is high and frantic, and it has to hurt to talk. "Just you."

Kobra freezes. There's a slowly building feeling of dread, growing stronger by the moment. He pulls Ghoul off him, holds him by the wrists. "Okay. Just me," he promises, and feels sick about it. "Just me."

Ghoul noticeably relaxes, though he's still trembling head to toe, and lets Kobra drag him across the diner in near-silence aside from the occasional seemingly involuntary whimper on Ghoul's part, into the single-stall bathroom with a barely working lightbulb. Somehow, they make it past the front room where Party sleeps without waking him, much as Kobra wants to let his brother take care of this. He's practically trembling at how badly he wants Pois right now.

There's a medical kit in the cabinet that Kobra pulls out immediately. He knows how to handle this, physically speaking. It's whatever else, the shit he doesn't know and is scared to find out, like how this freaking happened, that makes him nervous. Ghoul stands in the flickering light like he doesn't know what to do.

"Sit the fuck down," Kobra snaps nervously, gesturing to the toilet lid. Ghoul does. Kobra pulls a dubiously clean rag from the cabinet and eyes it. It scares him to see Ghoul like this. Usually if he's scared, he fights. He hisses and spits and claws at whoever comes near him. More often than not, that's Kobra. But this, the wide-eyed jittering, is a whole other animal.

"This whole thing is gonna suck," he says stiffly. Ghoul nods. With a little more light, Kobra can see the thick, shiny blood streaming from the wound through his cheek. It isn't enough that Kobra's afraid Ghoul will bleed out, but the cut is so long and clear through and absolutely grotesque. He crouches down in front of where Ghoul is sitting, sideways on the toilet, and he can't tell if Ghoul is looking at him or through him, almost as if he's the ghost.

In a quick motion that startles both of them, probably, Kobra grabs the back of Ghoul's head with one hand and presses the rag to the seeping wound with the other. Ghoul's eyes go even wider and even greener, and what starts out as a shout of pain from him turns into a choked keening sound. Hearing it feels like being stabbed.

"What happened?" Asks Kobra again, when he's convinced that the bleeding has slowed enough to try and actually deal with this thing. He twists the handle on the faucet on and off, on and off, enough times that the ancient water pump starts up and clean water gurgles into the sink. He cleans the rag that way, then wets it and wrings it out before shutting the water off.

Ghoul's shoulders rise and fall in short, panicky breaths. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm- I didn't think, it was stupid, I'm sorry," he continues babbling like that before going silent again aside from the sharp sounds of his breathing.

In a testament to Kobra's selfishness, his biggest worry is that Ghoul took his motorbike out for a spin and crashed it. He can't think of what could have caused something like this. He has visions of his bike sliding out on a turn, crumbled metal and Ghoul's body flying through the air. But if that had happened he'd be hurt other than this. If that had happened he might be dead.

"Yo," he says quietly. "Chill. Just tell me what happened." He presses the now-damp rag to Ghoul's face, trying to ignore just how grotesque the wound really is. Maybe because it's fresh, maybe because of the fear, but somehow it's worse than the space where Jet's other eye used to be. Kobra never wanted to see an injury of that level on another person again in his life, let alone someone he cares about.

Ghoul flinches away, but Kobra shoots him a look and it must process somehow, because he stills and lets Kobra clean the already drying blood away from the edges of the wound with barely a whine. "It was stupid," he repeats, his voice shaking as much as it's slurring. "I don't know why I did it, Kid."

Something about the way he says that, voice small and wavering, sends a chill down Kobra's throat. Sudden understanding dawns on him. The blood on Ghoul's hands. He's not injured anywhere else. "You did that to yourself?" Kobra asks hoarsely.

Ghoul's eyes snap onto his and the rest of the color drains from his face. Kobra thinks he's going to pass out for a second, but he doesn't. He pulls as far away as he can, scrabbling awkwardly against the cold tiles and porcelain of the bathroom. "I don't know what I though, I was stupid, I don't- Kobra," he whines, with enough animalistic despair that Kobra wants suddenly to burst into tears, if he weren't so utterly stunned.

"Ghoul, calm down, I've gotta stitch it still," he says on autopilot. "Cool your engine, man."

Maybe it's the practicality of the thing that makes Ghoul momentarily stop panicking. "I'm sorry," he says again, tears welling in his eyes that he then blinks away half-frantically. Kobra's never heard him apologize for anything before tonight. He never wants to hear it again.

"It's okay, man. I've got you." He replies. If his own voice is shaking now, too, no the hell it isn't. "Come on, you have to let me..." he trails off, eyes wide. "Ghoul, why..." Then he shakes his head. He can't think about that now. He needs to disinfect the wound and stitch it up. And it's going to hurt Ghoul really, really badly.

He reaches behind him, grabs at the bottle of alcohol. This stuff is rare out in the Zones. They try to use it as little as possible. Only in emergencies. This is enough of an emergency, though. This is a fucking crisis.

He pours the bare minimum of the alcohol onto another piece of cloth, feels the cold soak in. Ghoul watches every move with jerking, stilted intensity. Kobra looks up at him from where he's now kneeling on the cold tile. He puts a hand behind Ghoul's head again. "This is going to hurt," he warns. They've nearly gouged each other's eyes out before, yet suddenly Kobra feels like he's going to be sick at the thought of causing Ghoul any more pain. Ghoul shuts his eyes in preparation.

Ghoul still nearly screams when Kobra dabs the alcohol over his wound. Kobra can see it in the way he holds his breath, the spring-tight tension in Ghoul's entire body. The only noise he makes is a quiet, drawn out whine, though. When a tear streaks down his cheekbone, Kobra catches it before a drop of salt can enter the wound.

"'Kay," he says in a ragged whisper. "That's done. Now I have to-" he gestures like he's sewing. Ghoul's eyes pop open to see what he's saying and he visibly forces himself to breathe again.

"'Kay," Ghoul says back in an equally torn up voice.

It only takes Kobra three tries to thread a needle. Medical supplies of any type are hard to come by, a whole new kind of commodity, but this stash has been here for as long as he can remember, just in case. Blaster burns, the most common injuries amongst 'Joys, come pre-cauterized. He's rarely had to sew sutures before.

Ghoul flinches back when the tip of the needle first touches the edge of his torn skin, and Kobra pauses. "Hold still," he grumbles, more out of familiar sniping than any real frustration at this point. He keeps his hand in Ghoul's hair the entire time he sews.

The feeling of a needle piercing flesh is horrible. The fact that it's his friend, someone he'd give his life for before seeing them hurt, is even worse. Kobra wants to fucking throatpunch whoever did this to Ghoul, or better, do the same thing to them, before he remembers with a sinking feeling in his stomach that Ghoul did this to himself.

He ties off the suture just barely keeping his hands from shaking. He doesn't know how Ghoul does this with bombs. Ghoul flinches again, violently, when Kobra cuts the excess line, and Kobra has to jerk back to keep from catching a flailing, uncoordinated fist in the face.

"Hey," he snaps. "Ghoul!"

Ghoul slips off the toilet lid and onto the floor almost as if he intended it but halfway as an accident and immediately curls in on himself. He pulls his knees to his chest and curls his arms around his head and Kobra can hear him hyperventilating. Kobra fucking freezes. He's used to fighting and wrestling and knee-jerk reactions that wind up with someone sporting a black eye. He is terrified right now. And there's still Ghoul's blood on his hands, too.

"Ghoul..." He cautiously reaches out, puts a hand on Ghoul's leg. Ghoul twitches, lets out a hiccupy sound that takes a moment to register in Kobra's mind as a sob. Ghoul, chaos loving, cackling Ghoul, is crying. And not just a single tear, now, his whole body is shuddering with the force of how hard he's crying. Kobra's heart is pounding with how hard he does not know what's happening, but he grips Ghoul's arm and lightly shakes him. "Hey, I'm still here, man."

Ghoul makes that keening whine again and Kobra thinks at first that he's going to pull away at best, or throw a real punch at worst. They fight enough, for any and no reason at all, that he expects it now. That's their normal. This isn't.

Ghoul scrambles to his knees, his hands finding the front of Kobra's shirt. This restroom is small, they're already in close quarters. But maybe unintentionally, maybe just scrabbling for a little purchase on anything, Ghoul winds up grabbing onto Kobra. And Kobra has always had a hard time letting anything go.

Ghoul's forehead crashes into his shoulder and Kobra instinctively puts his hands up, grabs back onto Ghoul in return. Ghoul's usual shaking is familiar to him, but the repressed wracking sobs aren't. Kobra clutches desperately around Ghoul's back, like he could hold together what he's just sewn up, like if he keeps Ghoul close enough he can't shake into pieces. No one should be able to break Ghoul. Not even Ghoul himself.

The edges of the cabinet dig into Kobra's back, but he ignores it. Ghoul is folding in on himself, making himself as small as he can against Kobra, and Kobra doesn't fucking know what to do. He's never seen Ghoul cry like this. He's never seen anyone cry like this.

"It hurts," cries Ghoul suddenly.

"I know," Kobra says, before he realizes that crying like this is probably making everything worse, that he'd worried about salt in the wound a minute before for this exact reason. He can't imagine the pain Ghoul is probably in.

"It didn't hurt at first," Ghoul mumbles, then chokes on a sob. "It didn't hurt when I started. And then it did."

Kobra wants to ask again, why? But he won't get anything intelligible. There's a part of him that doesn't want to know. He's terrified of knowing the truth. Instead, he threads his fingers through Ghoul's hair again and just repeats, "I know. I know."

A few minutes pass in speedy, spiraling silence. The only sound between them is their shared too-fast breathing.

"I can't," stammers Ghoul finally, after his cries have tapered out into raspy gasps. "I can't turn it on or off."

"Huh?" Is all Kobra can think to say. "Ghoul, you're not making sense, nothing about this makes sense," he snips, too quick and too tense. He's so beyond his depth. He wants Jet or Party to come help but he can't have it his way because he promised. He promised Ghoul. He wants to hit something. A wall, just to feel the impact. To imagine he's hitting whatever it is that hurt his friend so badly he hurt himself.

Ghoul sniffs. All Kobra can see of him is the top of his head and the cheek with the stitches. The wound is swollen and red and is going to leave a horrific scar. Kobra clenches his fist tighter behind Ghoul's back. "When I'm having fun or not," Ghoul says. "I can't. I am or I'm not. But."

"But what?" For fuck's sake, Kobra just wants to understand. He can read Ghoul like a book from cover to cover most times, and it scares him that he's so lost right now.

"It isn't good enough," he mumbles. "It's... It's in my fuckin' name, Kid, if I can't live up to that what am I?"

Kobra stares, wide-eyed, at the wall across from him. Something clicks. The clean cut through Ghoul's face, clearly from a recently sharpened knife, clearly intentional, reached from the corner of his lips almost to his ear. "Oh fuck no," he whispers. "Hell no. What the fuck. You're not-" He feels himself shaking suddenly, with restrained searing hot anger. Ghoul cut his head open, mutilated himself, to make himself permanently grin. "You're not fucking beholden to your fucking name," Kobra says. He never swears this much, only in his own mind. He's running out of words. "Fuck," he says, with feeling.

Ghoul shudders again. "I'm fuckin insane, aren't I?" He asks with sudden clarity.

It's exactly what Kobra had been thinking, for once completely unable to figure out Ghoul's mind, but he can't just say that. He can't just say that he's terrified because nothing makes sense and he's never going to freaking leave Ghoul alone again because this is all completely unhinged on so many levels that he can't even begin to sort through it. He can't say anything. He hopes Ghoul is sane enough to understand that, at least.

He just holds his friend tighter. He wants his brother more than anything right now, wants Party to come and take this weight out of his hands, but a part of him knows that even if he did, he wouldn't be able to let go of Ghoul. Why didn't Ghoul want anyone else but him? Why, after pretty much imprinting on Party like a feral kitten when they'd first met, to the point that sometimes Kobra thinks bitterly than Ghoul might know Party better than his own brother does, did he come to him? Why did he do any of this?

If a few tears of his own drip down Kobra's nose and land in Ghoul's tangled hair, no the hell they don't. He's never seen anyone go to pieces like this and he's struck dumb at the fact that it's literal. Very, very literally, Ghoul has gone to pieces. Taken a knife, that's probably still lying on the floor of his abandoned-office bedroom, and cut a line through his own cheek just so others might see a smile there.

There's crazy in his veins. Acid, maybe. And Kobra's always known that even if Party recognized it first. Watching your whole family die, failing to save your baby sibling, doesn't leave a person without any scars. Only, now, the scar is far too visible. Kobra's always known that Ghoul is more wild than any of them. Feral, unpredictable. He was raised by a pair of Killjoys who named themselves Hoot and Holler, and the thing is, a ghoul is just a ghost, and ghosts wail too. He should have known.

"I should've known," he says out loud, the first words in a while. He knows Ghoul so well. Better than he knows himself. He should have known something was wrong. He should never have left him alone. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He can't even blink. He stares hard at the opposite wall and tries not to scream.

Ghoul shakes his head against Kobra's shoulder and winces. "Nuh-uh," he mumbles. "I'm crazy, man. I'm insane." The fuzzy way it sounds around the stitches and the swelling just seems like proof. Just last night Ghoul's cheek was smooth and soft as he grinned across a table in triumph after winning a card game. How is it that that was just a few hours ago? He shudders again. "I'm scared," he says more quietly.

"Me too," Kobra says. As soon as the sun comes up he thinks he's going to storm out into the desert and find something, anything to beat up. Even a freakin cactus would do at this point. He doesn't know how he's going to explain this to Pois or Jet but he knows that much. He's gonna shake so hard he blows up, like a can of soda, unless he hits something. "I fucking hate you," he snaps suddenly.

Ghoul starts to flinch away, but Kobra doesn't let him. In fact, he curls tighter around him without even knowing why. "What the hell," Ghoul rasps.

Kobra hisses through his teeth. Speaking of living up to names. He fucking hates anyone who hurts his friends. But he can't say it. Hard as he tries, in the one moment of clarity about his own mind that he has, he can't speak.

"I fucking hate me, too," Ghoul says finally. The single dusty lightbulb above them flickers. If it goes out, they'll be in total darkness. Kobra thinks one or both of them might have a wicked eyeshine by now. The desert makes you wild. For some people, they're born that way.

"I think you're my best friend," Kobra finally manages to whisper. It isn't exactly what he was going for. It's not something he would ever say if he had thought of it before it popped out of his mouth. But Ghoul gets the point. Of course he does. Ghoul always gets his sharp edges, snakebite teeth and misspoken definitions and all.

"I think you're mine," Ghoul says back. "I'm-"

Kobra smacks the back of his head, like this is in any way normal, like they aren't collapsed on a dim bathroom floor in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning and like one of them isn't mutilated for life by his own hand. Like this isn't the worst thing they've ever gone through together. "If you say you're sorry again, I'll cut you myself."

It's rough, and it's torn up and pained and choked, but Ghoul laughs. Just a short bark of laughter, hardly like the dry, rasping cackle that Kobra knows so well. It sounds like agony but it also sounds like the sun coming up. Kobra makes a noise in the back of his throat, more whine than laugh, but he's so close to blowing up that it's as good as it gets. He wants to freaking die if that would keep Ghoul in one piece.

Ghoul shifts in Kobra's arms and pulls away just far enough to look him in the eye. He clumsily wipes at the tears and snot all over his face and Kobra has to snap a hand out to catch his wrist before he unthinkingly swipes at the fresh wound and stitches. "Kobra," Ghoul says, shivering in the dark. The sun won't take long to come up once it starts but until it does, the Zones are freezing. "Kobra."

"Yeah, man, I'm still right here." Kobra forces himself to look Ghoul in the eyes and not the stitches. The wound takes up so much of his face. It's all Kobra can see when he looks at Ghoul, his best friend's mutilated mouth, sliced open by his own hand. Kobra flinches just imagining it. He focuses instead on Ghoul's green eyes, boring holes into his head with the desperate pleading in them. "I'm still right here," Kobra repeats, quieter. Reminding himself, too.

Ghoul doesn't blink. Kobra doesn't blink. Their eyes reflect the dim light back at each other. This is what wild animals must feel for each other. Terror. Uncertainty. Just themselves, each other, and whatever comes. Ghoul licks his lips, tongue flicking briefly, visibly, to the corner of his mouth that he cut open. "Don't let me-" Ghoul starts and then falters. "You gotta make sure," he says. "Don't let me- do stupid shit like this, don't let me go crazy again, Kobra, please."

Kobra stares back at him, matching Ghoul's trembling desperation. He's known Ghoul since the day their crew found him, shell shocked between the shelves of an empty gas station with the bodies of his parents and previous crew around him. Perpetually shaking hands and feral bared teeth, animal eyeshine. No one can match Ghoul for determination, and no one knows Kobra as well as he does. Even if Ghoul does know his brother better than him, the same is true in reverse.

Kobra Kid has a hard fucking time ever letting go of anything once he's got it. Fun Ghoul holds on too loosely. They're both terrified. What a pair they make. But when Kobra Kid makes a promise, he means it. He grabs the ends of Ghoul's hair and pulls, not too hard, but hard enough. That's their normal. Play fighting and hair pulling, and they both know it's a kind of language for when they can't speak. "Okay," he says, and because it's a promise, he repeats it. "Okay."

[art--harridan]

[Image description: A digital drawing of Angela Baker from the film Sleepaway Camp. It depicts Angela with her face warped into a gaping smile, mouth open wide. Her eyes are also wide, and she's staring off to the left with her eyebrows raised. There is blood on her neck and chest, which is only just visible and seems to be bare. Her hair is messy, and fades into the black background. The colour palette is comprised of muted neutrals, which make the black lineart and background, and the blood stand out more.]

Inktober - Day 22

Film - Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik, 1983)

[heartorbit]

i'm sending this endless melody to a nameless you

[lousylemonseminar]

This won’t take long

Day one of jrwi freak week!!!!!!! YAHOOO!!

Just dissecting fish for today :o))))

Less er filters cause it’s kinda ahard to see vvv

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

I'm sorry I can't take your call right now, I'm becoming unhinged about Transformers again,,,

[iliketomatosauce]

When you get this, list 5 songs you like to listen to, publish them, and send this ask to the last 10 people in your notifs 💗

Little Flaws - Lady Lamb

Black Out Days - Phantogram

Too Precious - Em Beihold

Go-A shum x Maneskin Zitti e Buoni (mashup) - (artist names are )

The Water is Fine - Chloe Ament

these were off the top of my head study hall songs, so these are really random and i probably missed a lot that i like...still, these are super good :) plus this was a treat to get in my inbox, tysm!